"Unparenting" revisted

I know, I know, been there done that... How many times am I supposed to see someone claim they are an unschooler but NOT an unparent????

I honestly believe that people who say this are NOT unschoolers! In order for someone to say this they must have some preconceived notion about how unschoolers parent in the first place.
From what I see unschoolers are very mindful parents. They are respectful parents. They work hard at parenting, well I sure do.

I have 4 very different, very individual children, to parent them blanketly and arbitrarily would cause them undo harm.

I have stated many times before that I parent my ass off and it's true, I can't sit down cause it hurts, no cushion there, LOL!

Really in order to unschool completely you must parent completely. Making arbitrary rules for the sake of convenience or trying to uphold some sort of notion you have about how kids should act and how you should parent is wrong in my opinion.

Kids are people and deserve to be treated as such,actually just yesterday Jared asked me if kids were people, what a question from a 5 year old.

I will tell you it is pretty damn easy to sit high and mighty and make rules and punishments and take away *privileges* and make up bedtimes and cut out video games and whatever else parents do to make their kids obey.

To truly parent in the spirit of your children takes a huge paradigm shift away from authoritarian and move towards respect and partnership. It is beneficial to parent individually and not make up stupid rules for everyone to follow and punishments when they don't.

It makes so much more sense to discuss things and find the root of the issue or behaviour and to LISTEN to your child.